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Re: [PATCH] Memec Virtex-II Pro and PowerPC 405 watchdog support


Andrew Lunn wrote:
+// This file is part of eCos, the Embedded Configurable Operating System.
+// Copyright (C) 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Red Hat, Inc.
+// Copyright (C) 2002, 2004 Mind n.v. <v2p@mind.be>

When this is committed to anoncvs, this Mind Copyright will have to be
removed.


That is a problem. Though we may be prepared to assign the copyright
to the code to someone else, we also want to retain the
(non-exclusive) copyright and the right to use our code as we see
fit, as well as a permanent reference to Mind as the original
contributor.


IANAL. From my understanding of the copyright assigment, this is not
possible. You assign the copyright to RedHat or eCosCentric or
hopefully sometime soon FSF. You have none exclusive rights

non-exclusive :-)


to use the
code yourself, but you no longer own the copyright. You can put your
name in the contributers section of the header on each file and in the
documentation etc.

Andrew is right. The issue is that copyright for a single work can only rest in one place. Copyright unfortunately cannot be shared (although files may contain multiple separate "works" and thus multiple copyrights). If you assign, you no longer hold the copyright.


But as Andrew points out, what the assignment at <http://ecos.sourceware.org/assign.html> states is that the assignee "agrees to grant [the assigner] non-exclusive rights to use the Work [...] as [they] see fit;

That means *in general* an assigner can do just about anything he/she wants with new intellectual property work, including distribute it both internally or externally under a more restrictive, differently restrictive, or less restrictive licence.

In other words, the assignment doesn't really change what you can do with the code. An assigner retains non-exclusive rights and thus the right to use the code as they see fit. But not "non-exclusive copyright" as there isn't really such a thing.

But in practice in *this* specific case, I note that every file in this contribution is a derived work of Red Hat copyright eCos licensed files. As such, the eCos license (GPL + exception) still applies to those files. So it's not clear to me what code you would be allowed to use as you see fit in any case, as you must till comply with the GPL with those files. A copyright assignment won't change this one way or the other.

And as per Andrew, putting Mind's name in the contributers bit of the header or documentation is perfectly appropriate.

Hope this clarifies things,

Jifl
--
eCosCentric    http://www.eCosCentric.com/    The eCos and RedBoot experts
--["No sense being pessimistic, it wouldn't work anyway"]-- Opinions==mine


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